proPOTATO: Potato proteins – Challenges and industrial usages has just received funding

A project with somewhat complementary activities to BioValue Project 2 has recently been funded through Innovation Fund Denmark. BioValue partners KMC, Aarhus University, and Copenhagen University will together with AKV Langholt and DuPont Nutrition Biosciences run the proPOTATO project until year 2021, upgrading potato protein from starch production to sustainable food and food ingredients.

A lot of food contains animal protein from the likes of egg or milk, but new research will allow
to replace these with potato protein derived from the production of potato starch. This will lead to better
utilization of the potatoes, allowing the demand for protein met and contributing to a more
sustainable feeding of the world’s growing population.

Denmark has an especially large potato production, and companies KMC and AKV receive more than 1.2 million tonnes of potatoes a year, which is mainly used for the production of starch.
A side product of this production is almost 10,000 tonnes of potato protein that in a food-related context contains unfortunate byproducts. Therefore, this material is currently only used for animal feed. With the project proPOTATO parties want to change this and contribute to the development of new and healthy potato protein-based ingredients and food.

The hope is that with a growing population that will be increasing pressure on food production, this project can lead to results that will alleviate this problem. By changing diets from meat heavy diets to mostly plant-based products, smaller agricultural areas can feed more people.